Until The Sun Cries Morning
by Mark of the Asphodel
Summary: AU.  Fire Emblem meets the American Civil War, inspired by "Milady Luck" by Trevor X.  Part Three, Section A, in which the arrival of the lovely Caeda Lowell sets several plots into motion.  Genfic.  Darkish.  FE8-based with FE6/7 and FE11/12 in the mix.
1. Let's Not Forget Ourselves

**Let's Not Forget Ourselves**

I do not own _Fire Emblem_ or any of its characters. Or the American Civil War or any of its personalities.

I'd say I don't know how I got into AU Fire Emblem mash-ups, except that I do know where it began. I read a thread on Serenes Forest that hypothesized that, were Ephraim and Eliwood somehow to meet, it would end in bloodshed. I didn't buy it- but I could definitely see Eph having a problem with Lord-type characters other than Eliwood.

This particular mash-up stems from a request from shining_valor, who wanted a Seth-and-Orson Civil War piece. I'm working on it... and this is a side story to it.

* * *

_March, 1863. Murfreesboro, Tennessee._

Ephraim drummed his fingers on the table top in time with the rhythm of falling water. He felt conspicuous, almost as though a target had been affixed to his back. It was silly; his uniform was no different than the blue blouse of a private, and even if someone studied him closely enough to note the star on each soldier, brigade leaders were a dime for a dozen in this town. He must make an utterly ordinary sight in the lobby of Murfreesboro's second-finest hotel, especially as he was now, with his hair damp from the rain and his boots caked with Tennessee mud.

Ephraim was on his second cup of coffee when he heard a familiar foot-fall approaching from behind. Strange that, after so many years, he still knew Innes simply from the sound of the man's _step_.

"Good morning, Colonel."

"Good morning, _General_."

They regarded one another for a moment. Innes looked as though he'd stepped out of a bandbox; he had on his dress uniform, right down to the hat. Ephraim stared for a moment at the crimson sash that dangled at the other man's side. It reminded him of a gush of blood, frozen in the act of spilling.

Ephraim wasn't sure where his own hat even _was_.

Innes sat down opposite Ephraim, all the while keeping his carriage so erect that the effect was almost ridiculous. The coffee girl seemed to like it, though... she definitely paid Innes more mind than she had Ephraim.

"Where is Lowell? It's not like him to be late."

"He was drinking last night," Innes replied with a marked lack of concern.

"I thought he was as passionate about temperance as he is about abolition."

"He's a hypocrite. He's been drinking in his quarters since Stones River."

Ephraim stared at Innes over the rim of his half-empty cup.

"Stones River is a good enough reason to drink," he said, and drained the rest of the coffee. The Lord knew that he'd spent the night after with a bottle of Kentucky's finest. His corps commander had been so drunk he'd been singing _nursery rhymes_...

"Whatever you say, General Kingston."

"I will say it, Colonel Canmore."

They glared at one another across the table; Ephraim wondered if Innes carried the same loathing of his battlefield promotion that Ephraim had for his new rank. Maybe not. Then again, Innes was such a stickler for protocol, and it just didn't seem right to have all these men shy of thirty running around with stars and eagles on their shoulders. Like they really outranked the greybeards who'd taught them everything back at the Academy...

"Good morning, friends."

Marth Lowell's greeting was automatic and meaningless; Innes and Ephraim both had dearer friends among the ranks of the enemy than they had in their fellow officer. Politicians-in-uniform were a plague upon the Army, and Lowell's only reason for being invited to breakfast was that he liked his fellow political creatures as well as the real officers did. _Not at all_.

Ephraim scrutinized the man who was his superior officer, in fact if not in merit. Lowell's eyes were clear and on the whole he didn't seem like a man who'd just awakened from a drinking binge. He was in his dress uniform, too- the sixteen buttons on his jacket gleamed in the gaslight. Lowell also gave a perfectly believable reason for being late, though men who would lose themselves in a bottle at night did tend to have a stock of excuses. Or Innes was telling tales... for whatever reason.

"Well," Ephraim said slowly. "Now that we're all here, where do we begin?"

-x-

Innes crossed his arms and regarded the two men across the table. The Kentuckian and the Michigander made a perfect pair, he thought- Senator Kingston's brat and Senator Chandler's pliant tool. Both of them stubborn, both of them reckless, and both of them cherishing the covert desire to put a bullet in the brains of half the high command.

Both of them clay in his hands, thanks to the current state of the Army of the Cumberland.

Innes had the august men of the high command defined in his head, as neatly as in Mr. Webster's dictionary. The entry for Major General McCook of the XX Corps read "mentally deficient." McCook's XXI Corps counterpart General Crittenden was labeled forever as a foul-mouthed blower of his own fair horn. As for their Army's commander, the entry for General Rosecrans read, "A genius. Jury currently out on whether his genius is of the mad sort." On the one hand, he'd turned morale around after a year of maltreatment at the hands of the previous commander. On the other hand... Innes had once been privileged to witness an evening of entertainment in Old Rosy's quarters, which consisted of listening to the general expound at length upon the glories and wonders of the Roman Church. Innes considered himself to be lucky if he wasn't invited back any time soon.

This categorization extended itself to Innes's own circle. He'd recognized early on that Lowell's nerves were strung like piano wire; in the moments when Lowell neglected to use his stock of personal charm, a disturbing _lack_ of something in his soul at once became apparent. Men like that needed something to fill the void, be it second-hand political slogans or Tennessee whiskey. As for Kingston... Innes had been studying the flaws and foibles of Ephraim Kingston for more than a decade, since the day he first encountered the blockheaded Kentuckian at the Academy gates.

"Where _do_ we begin?" Innes repeated. "Where are we now?"

"Bottled up in Murfreesboro for the third straight month," Ephraim replied. "While Bragg's army sits pretty in Tullahoma."

"Sits starving in the Barrens, you mean," Lowell interjected.

"Says a handful of miserable deserters, who may or may not be spies."

"It's poor farmland." Lowell shrugged off Ephraim's objection. "Why Bragg abandoned the best valleys to us, I don't know. Maybe he hates his own men as much as they say."

And the conversational opening Innes was waiting for arrived ahead of schedule.

"He hates his generals, and that's a fact. And Bragg's generals hate him back with equal passion," Innes said.

The two general officers in his present company looked back at Innes with near-identical stares of disgust.

"We could offer up a trade- half our commanders for Bragg's bunch," said Ephraim. "Wouldn't do us any more harm than McCook and Crittenden are doing us now."

Well, that was coming on a little too strong, too fast. Innes looked at the dark stain spreading across Lowell's cheekbones and decided to downplay the issue a hair. He didn't want open mutiny in the hotel lobby.

"Old Slow Trot is all right. And the bloom may be off our Rosey after Stones River, but at least he's no Buell." Innes hadn't been among the twenty officers who petitioned President Lincoln to have General Buell sent as far from their Army as was possible, but he agreed with the outcome.

The shadow of Stones River and its twenty thousand fallen settled over the table, leaving the fine young generals mute for a moment.

"I want to see McCook courtmartialed," Lowell muttered.

"I want to see Crittenden shot," Ephraim retorted. "The man is a stain upon the military reputation of all Kentucky."

Innes rolled his eyes.

"It always comes back to one thing with you, Kingston. _My dear Kentucky home, land of fine horses and fine women..._"

The schoolroom jibe burst the tension between them; Ephraim snorted and Lowell produced a faint smile. Innes then invited his old classmate to lay his cards on the table.

"Since we agree our current situation is pathetic, General Kingston, what do you propose we do instead of spending another three months drilling and parading in the mud?"

Ephraim leaned back in his chair until its feet squeaked against the parquet floor.

"Break into Old Rosey's inner circle and convince him that we need to take on General Bragg where he's hiding. Now, before Jeff Davis wisens up and sends someone competent in to take Bragg's place."

"Do you want it as a flank attack or just a grand frontal assault?" Lowell said it under his breath, and Innes ignored him for the time being.

"So, how do we get a word in the gracious ear of Rosecrans? Any ideas?"

"Well..." Ephraim fell silent.

"How do we 'break in' to that inner circle, Kingston? Aside from converting to the True Faith and showing up for catechism."

"There is the boy," Lowell said, with considerable hesitation.

"Rosy's become quite attached to young MacPherson," Ephraim agreed.

"Out of guilt," Innes put in. "But no matter. There's an avenue for us. A pity none of us was close to Roy's father."

"Seth was. He knew General MacPherson from their time at the Academy," said Ephraim. His eyes were already alight with what Innes recognized as the first glimmer of a scheme.

"True. Unfortunately for us, your friend General Harding isn't here," said Innes.

"No, he's off on another cavalry raid, to great cost and very little avail."

Ephraim's mouth was agape, but the sour comment hadn't come from his lips. Innes narrowed his eyes at Lowell. The Michigander's dark brows had come together in a frown and his china-blue eyes were fixed on some point in mid-air.

"I admit that cavalry tactics are not my area of expertise," Innes said smoothly, and he touched the red artillerists' trim on his jacket. "I take it you have an issue with the current use of our horsemen?"

"These raids of derring-do are pointless and waste men's lives. How many have fallen since January- do you know? I know we lost nearly two thousand last week at Thompson's Station! And for what? Have we anything to show for it?"

"I don't know _what _you'd know about tactical matters..." Ephraim had his jaw working again, and he thrust his conversational lance right into the sorest of sore points. "But if you're implying that our cavalry are incompetent..."

"I don't think that's what he's saying," Innes interrupted. "But I think we can agree that Thompson's Station wasn't a proud moment for our side."

"No! But... look, the Rebel cavalry are a gang of madmen- Forrest, and Morgan, and Tal Murphy and his raiders. We're not doing anything like that."

"My point is that we're not doing anything at all," Lowell said. "Nothing worth the cost, at any rate."

Innes had to repress a smile of satisfaction. There was _nothing_ in the world like a bleeding-heart idealist who'd woken up to the fact that his grand campaign to do the Lord's work had turned into a grim circus of death and mayhem. And Innes knew the keys to strike to play upon those piano-wire nerves.

"What would be worth the cost of two thousand men, Lowell? Or twenty thousand, or the many scores of thousands that have fallen to date?"

"Winning this war."

"And how do you propose we _do_ that, sir?" Ephraim didn't leave Lowell time to answer. "_I _propose we get out there, settle our scores with Bragg, and take Chattanooga."

"Taking Chattanooga won't win this war. Taking Atlanta won't win it. These days, I'm not sure taking _Richmond_ might."

Innes held his breath. It was all about to come spilling out, and he- Colonel Innes Canmore- hadn't needed to express a single idea of his own. Lowell was going to do all the talking for him.

"Are you mad?" asked Ephraim. "What are the rebels going to do if we take their capital?"

"Cities and presidential mansions don't make a nation. Painted lines and printed words upon a map don't make a nation."

"So what makes a nation?"

"Something in the heart that cities can't contain. Something that goes beyond songs and flags and pieces of paper. The rebels sing and raise their starry banner because they are rebels, not because the flag makes rebels out of them."

Innes wished a camera were available to capture the expression of Ephraim's face just then. As for Lowell, he was animated at last, filled with the spark that convinced men from Michigan and Indiana to sign up for hell itself under his regimental colors.

"Okay," Ephraim said then. "So, how in your view do we beat the rebels?"

"Bring them to the point where they see no future any longer for their newborn nation and lay down arms of their own accord."

Ephraim wasn't tipped back in his chair any longer; he was sitting upright, his back straight enough to make their old instructors proud.

"Are we talking the Anaconda Plan here?" he said uncertainly. "Starve them all into submission?"

"I'm... I don't know." Lowell looked down, and the spell was broken. He was, again, just a hollow talker who'd persuaded his way into an officer's uniform.

"You don't know." Innes had to keep from sighing; he already knew how Ephraim behaved when he thought he'd found an opening to exploit. "You're talking about something highly unsettling, _sir_, talking about breaking the spirit of several million people, and you _don't know_ how to bring it about. All in all, I'd rather be taking Chattanooga."

"Fine. Take it. The war won't end. The bodies will keep on piling up, staining the fields of every farm in the South with a red the sun won't bleach and the rains can't wash away."

"Well, if I can't end the war, and if you can't end it, I don't know why we're even talking." Ephraim crossed his arms; he might have been a petulant cadet about to earn himself another six demerits.

"I don't know why we're even talking," Lowell echoed. He pulled out his watch as though checking the hour, but Innes noticed that Lowell didn't even focus on the timepiece and didn't really _see_ it before stowing it away again.

Innes cleared his throat.

"I believe we were talking about using young Roy MacPherson as an agent to gain access to General Rosecrans."

"Yes, so we can convince Rosy to commit inhumane acts against the people of the South until they beg for mercy." Ephraim's eyes, a changeable blue-green, looked especially green and bright in that moment. "Or maybe just to let us get out there and whip Braxton Bragg once and for all."

"That's fine. Now, the question in, which of us approaches the boy? And don't say 'Seth Harding,' Ephraim. The man's not here."

"I'll talk to him," Ephraim replied. Again, that had been an easy coup for Innes to manage. Let Kingston fill the boy's head with dreams of glory beyond the walls of Fort Rosecrans. If Lowell did the talking, Innes wasn't sure _what_ sort of message the former politician would impart to Roy. The cracks in Lowell's psyche were a little too wide to trust him with the task; Ephraim would keep the message simple and direct.

So, they parted ways. Lowell shook hands with them both, but he already sounded doubtful over their scheme.

"Let's not forget ourselves, my friends. The great machinery of this Army won't stir itself at our command."

"It won't be at our command, Marth," Innes said, opting to feign friendship with his co-conspirator. "Major General Rosecrans will be issuing the orders. It'll just be our ideas put into his head... with none of our brave superiors being any the wiser."

That, of course, was not the goal of Colonel Innes Canmore at all. His "friends" simply didn't need to know it.

-x-

Ephraim had nowhere in particular to be on that rainy morning. He remained slouched in his seat in the hotel lobby for some time after Innes and General Lowell both disappeared.

"Drunk? I don't know about that. But the man is definitely out of his mind. I don't know if it's something in the water up there in Michigan, or what..."

At last, Ephraim pulled his long body out of the chair and headed for the street. It was still raining, and now he wished that he did have his missing hat. The raindrops trickled down the back of his neck and pooled between his shoulder blades; it felt like a puddle of blood. There in the cream-thick mud of the street, he turned in the direction of Tullahoma and addressed the gray horizon.

"I know you're out there, Lyon. What in God's name were you thinking?"

**The End... for now.**

* * *

Notes and Stuff:

All characters not from _Fire Emblem_ are real people, and their portrayal is roughly in accordance with contemporary perceptions- McCook and Crittenden were loathed, Rosecrans loved to talk up Catholicism with his young aides, and so on.

Last names: shining_valor himself contributed "Kingston" and "MacPherson" for Ephraim and Roy respectively, as is "Harding" for Seth. "Canmore" for Innes is a nod to his pseudo-Scottishness and is derived from the royal dynasty of Scotland prior to Robert the Bruce. "Lowell" for Marth comes from the anime; it's crummy in a _Fire Emblem_ context but works for 19th-century America. I personally think it's a joke last name. [Mars...Lowell. As in Lowell Observatory, mecca for believers in life on Mars. Geddit?]

As far as background goes, Ephraim comes from a well-to-do and influential family in Kentucky. Innes is from Pennsylvania, though it isn't mentioned in this story. And Marth hails from Michigan (x-ref the "prequel" to these stories, "Transcendence"). Innes and Ephraim were at West Point together- Ephraim has an infantry background, whereas Innes specializes in engineering and artillery. Marth is a pretty blatant non-West Pointer political general, there to make his radical allies in DC happy (Senator Zacharias Chandler being a very Important Dude of the day). These guys are all in their late twenties/early thirties during the war, while Roy is about sixteen here.

"Michigander" (as opposed to "Michiganian") was supposedly coined by Abraham Lincoln, who was insulting the Michigan politician...er, statesman... Lewis Cass. It wasn't a nice thing to call someone at the time.

Finally, while I admit Innes and Ephraim in this owe a lot of my headcanon (a peril of AUs, after all), I'm not making any apologies for my portrayal of Marth here. His characterization in FE11 and FE12 appears to consist of puzzle pieces from different puzzles that don't add up to anything.


	2. Executioner For A Day

**Executioner for a Day**

I do not own _Fire Emblem_ or any of its characters.

_April, 1863. "Fort Rosecrans," Murfreesboro, Tennessee._

_

* * *

_

Had Ephraim only known what Absalom Hays wanted, he would have granted the furlough. But Hays's desire to go home and help his widowed mother plant their crops never did come to the ears of his brigade commander; when the furlough was denied by the colonel in charge of Hays's regiment, the lad bolted, running back across the Tennessee border for his hardscrabble farm in Kentucky.

The Army of the Cumberland caught up with young Hays when he attempted to rejoin after his mother's crops were set. Tried and duly convicted on all charges and specifications, Private Hays now had an appointment with the firing squad for his dishonorable desertion.

And it was now Ephraim Kingston's duty, under Heaven if not under the law, to get Private Hays out of that fix.

"Hard one to crack," said Innes when Ephraim took the problem up with him. Innes thought himself the intellectual equal of any lawyer in Philadelphia, so Ephraim was willing to put the dilemma of saving Private Hays to his talents. "Your boy should've appealed his case to you once his regimental officer denied him leave."

"I know that, and I know he_ should've_ known it, but the fact was, he panicked." In response to Innes's cool-eyed stare, Ephraim laid down all the circumstances. "Look, his father died last year, his mother was barely scraping by with Absalom gone, and Tal Murphy's squadron went and burned the barn on one of their confounded raids. Mrs. Hays was likely to starve. That should count for something."

"Doesn't count for much," replied Innes. "If we don't have ten thousand men in this Army in a like condition, then we've twenty thousand. Do they all get to run back home without leave?"

Every fiber of his training knew that Innes was right, and that desertion was a knife in the back of the Army. But Ephraim's heart railed against the idea of inflicting a death sentence on a poor Kentucky farm boy for the capital crime of aiding his own mother. He'd barely known Absalom Hays before this incident, but Ephraim knew him on sight now, could conjure without effort the image of a spindle-limbed youngster with cornflower-blue eyes and fair hair spilling out from under his cap. Hays was nineteen, looked sixteen, and dropping him into a traitor's grave just didn't feel like justice.

"It's not right," said Ephraim, and went off in search of someone else who could help him.

-x-

He didn't confess, to Innes Canmore or anyone else, that the unfortunate Private Absalom Hays and his death sentence struck a nerve deep within him, for Hays strongly reminded Ephraim of someone.

They'd only roomed together for one year, the last, but Ephraim's memory had rewritten itself so that he could've sworn he'd spent every day at the Academy in Lyon Granville's company. Everything was heightened and magnified, and it hardly seemed possible that it'd only been once that he'd cajoled Lyon out to a tavern for late-night flapjacks, only once that they'd joined other cadets in a secret feast of roast turkey and other things smuggled from the kitchens. In Ephraim's mind, he and Lyon never would have lasted through the four years in the Academy without the other present. Without Lyon, Ephraim would have been sent home on account of chemistry... or philosophy... or calculus. Without Ephraim, Lyon would surely have never survived riding lessons or managed proficiency with a sword.

Ephraim looked into the face of Absalom Hays, and saw young Cadet Granville looking back at him. It all led to the solid conviction that sparing Private Hays was somehow _necessary_ to the greater scheme of God's creation, for to see a young "traitor" deprived of his life, not in the heat of battle but by the cold hands of justice, sent a ripple of apprehension through Ephraim's soul. What would happen when the Union won, and every rebel officer was left a defeated traitor? Would they all go deaf from the echoes of firing squads, or would dead men hang from every tree?

-x-

Eirika would have known the words, he thought. His sister had never studied law, of course, but she'd studied the Bible, and she could make an argument for mercy and compassion with enough grace to soften a stone heart. But Eirika wasn't at his side now, and Ephraim felt the lack as keenly as if he'd lost a hand. Ephraim turned then to the other person in his circle who was known for putting words together and asked him to plead the Hays case before higher powers.

"It was no use, my friend."

"You couldn't talk the General into a pardon?" Ephraim couldn't be outright rude to a man who'd tried to do him a favor, but he underlined his response to Marth Lowell with one unmistakable message: _you must not have tried very hard_.

"In my defense, Ephraim, the facts of Hays's disappearance were not good." Lowell gave him an unblinking, unrevealing stare. He had large eyes, fringed with thick lashes as long as any lady's, but there was an opacity to his gaze that Ephraim found unnerving at times.

This time, Ephraim just found it aggravating.

"He _came back_ of his own free will once the planting was done. Doesn't _that_ count for something? Anything?"

"It does," Lowell said with utmost solemnity. "That's the mitigating circumstance that sends Hays to the firing squad instead of the gallows."

"What?" Ephraim heard his own voice crack. "Nobody hangs deserters. We hang _murderers_."

"It seems there's some evidence that, during his French Leave, Hays took it upon himself to kill a man who'd been menacing his mother. It wasn't introduced at his court-martial because the case for desertion was strong enough on its own."

"That's lies and falsehood. Have you seen Private Hays? He doesn't look sturdy enough to carry his own pack and rifle. He can't have..."

But of course Hays could've killed a man. He was a soldier, taught to point his gun and take another man's life without question. Lowell looked to be on the verge of saying some disagreeable thing- possibly the objection Ephraim had in his own mind- then shook his head.

"May I tell you what is behind all this?"

"Feel free." Ephraim leaned back against the wall, not caring if his head or clothing left marks upon the damask-rose wallpaper. Lowell settled in to his "speechifying" pose and began the lecture.

"There is some sentiment among certain division and corps commanders that the men of your home state have received preferential treatment up to now. This could be tolerated as long as there was a chance that Kentucky might secede, and perhaps take Missouri and Maryland with it. But Kentuckians didn't stream to the rebel call to arms when Bragg's army made its invasion last year. President Lincoln's Proclamation regarding emancipation didn't induce Kentucky to join the insurrection. In short, there's a strong belief that it's time to, er, 'take off the kid gloves' when it comes to border states and to give a Kentuckian deserter the same fate as a private from Ohio, or Iowa, or California or any state in the union."

Something in the back of Ephraim's mind wasn't completely shocked by this. There'd been a sense, he thought, of "making an example of him" about the entire Hays case.

"So my soldier gets to pay not for Kentucky's sins, but for her virtue. And I suppose the expressed opinion of this Kentucky officer would carry no weight in those high places."

"Mm."

"Do you feel the same?" The question came close to insubordination, to baiting a senior officer, but Ephraim had spent most of his career on the ragged edge and wasn't afraid to step up to that line.

"I believe this is a highly unfortunate case and would like very much to see it resolved in a way that doesn't involve shooting a nineteen-year-old to pieces."

A fine piece of equivocation, Ephraim thought. Politician-speak.

"Do you believe the accusations of murder?"

"They didn't seem to hold water," Lowell replied, and his speaking voice lapsed into something more natural. It gave Ephraim hope that the murder charge was as flimsy as he wanted it to be.

"I won't ask you this as my senior officer- I understand that route's closed to me. But I will ask you, as a man with a feeling for common decency, as someone who feels revulsion at the judicial murder of a _child_, to go back to the high command and pull whatever levers you have to pull to get this thing taken care of."

Ephraim could hear the clock on the opposite wall grinding out the seconds as Lowell thought it over.

"I'll do what I can. But Ephraim, I can't promise you any success."

"I'll pray that it's enough," Ephraim said. "Since that seems to be about all I _can_ do."

-x-

Ephraim dreamed of Lyon that night- Lyon as he'd been during their years at the Academy, a small figure tucked into a gray cadet's uniform. But the ribbons and badges on his jacket were all wrong, and when Ephraim asked about them, Cadet Granville began explaining about battles that wouldn't happen for another decade.

"This is for the battle I died in," the dream-Lyon said, pointing to a black satin band on his arm.

Try as he might, after he woke Ephraim couldn't recall the name of that fatal encounter. He lay staring at the ceiling as the hours of the night wore on toward dawn, trying to banish the Lyon from the dream by recalling the real Lyon Granville and reliving memory.

It was the summer of their freedom, the summer of graduation, though Ephraim was dissatisfied that he didn't know his post-Academy future quite yet. He'd put in for the cavalry but hadn't heard anything back, so he went down to the Carolinas in a civilian's suit instead of a crisp new uniform. Eirika came with him, bringing with her a magnificent dress of carmine velvet over white satin- all to represent Kentucky before the gentry of South Carolina, of course. Nothing to do with the watercolor Lyon once had made of a girl with a strong resemblance to Eirika in a carmine dress.

Lyon had told Ephraim bits and pieces about his father's house, but he'd never let on the grandeur of the place. Grado plantation looked like a palace, with its white colonnade and formal gardens; it dwarfed the Kingston estate of Renais. Ephraim had heard that South Carolina was the true heart of the South, its finest expression of courtesy and culture. He guessed that was true; everyone was exceptionally gracious and so very refined. But the politeness was boring to Ephraim, and the beautiful women talked about books he'd never read and plays he'd never watched. He gravitated more toward Lyon's father, called "Colonel" out of courtesy though it wasn't his true rank. Vigarde Granville looked the part, though- looked a perfect Southern gentleman, Eirika said, with his wavy flowing hair and well-kept beard. He'd been in the Second Seminole War, and Ephraim would have listened to the Colonel share war stories all night except that Colonel Granville had guests to entertain, and it wouldn't do to neglect the belles present that evening.

Lyon beckoned Ephraim out onto the portico; Ephraim cast a glance at Eirika, who was dancing with Colonel Granville, and followed Lyon outside. Everything smelled like sweet jasmine and fireflies shimmered in the warm, damp air- like the stars had come down to join the dance, Lyon said. He was terribly thin, down to a hundred and fifteen pounds, and Ephraim hoped that Lyon wasn't starting to sicken in the summer heat. He'd always wondered how Lyon had managed to make it through four years at the Academy- really, it was a surprise that Lyon'd even passed the entrance physical.

But that night Lyon was filled with dreams of the future, a future that included Ephraim, because hopefully they'd be posted somewhere together... and a future that included Eirika.

"I can't inflict the trials of a soldier's wife on Eirika," he said. "Once my four years are in, I'll try to get a place back at the Academy. I could teach geometry or chemistry..."

"Or history, or philosophy. Or any of it," Ephraim agreed. He wasn't sure if Eirika would like to be a teacher's wife, any more than she'd want to be an Army wife. It wasn't something he'd ever imagined for her, anyway. In his heart, he always pictured her at Renais, under the hickory trees.

"When the time comes, I'll ask your father for his blessing," said Lyon. "And then I'll ask Eirika... she'll like that, won't she?"

"Sure," Ephraim said, thinking of the carmine-red dress Eirika had worn just for Lyon to see. And Lyon showed him a fragile smile with so much hope in it that Ephraim wished that Eirika would truly be pleased living at the Academy, where it was sweltering in the summer and frozen all winter and the drums pounded all the day long.

Ephraim didn't get his cavalry commission; he and Lyon both landed in the infantry, but Lyon's prayers were answered and they went off to serve together on the California coast- "the most healthful place in the world," everyone said, though the journey through Panama nearly killed Lyon. And Ephraim made sure to always include a mention of Lyon in his letters to Eirika, to keep their friend ever fresh in Eirika's memory... but that perfect moment never did come. By the time Lyon's period of service was up, he was needed at home to manage Grado; his father was ailing.

"When Father's recovered, I'll come up and ask the Senator for his blessing," Lyon promised when Ephraim saw him off. That day never came, either; South Carolina declared its secession before the year was out. Ephraim heard later that Colonel Granville died on the very day that Beauregarde's men fired on Fort Sumter. He didn't know if that was true, but it might have been. What he did know was that, in short order, there was a _new_ Colonel Granville- Lyon Granville, C.S.A. And it was the duty of Lt. Colonel Ephraim Kingston, United States Army, to kill every rebel- every traitor- that he could find.

As the first blush of dawn showed at his window, Ephraim wasn't thinking of Absalom Hays. It was Lyon he saw dangling from the end of a rope, Lyon he saw standing blindfolded at side of an open coffin, awaiting a barrage of fire.

-x-

"Rough night, General?"

Colm Foley's brogue lent a charm to his most impudent comments.

"Wasn't one of my best," Ephraim replied, as Colm laid out his clothes for the day. "No, not that one. The dress jacket."

If he had to witness one of his own men being executed, he might as well put on the bravest show possible. So Ephraim sat atop his stallion in his parade finery and made his face a mask of detachment. He pretended he was a statue of himself... a statue raised on some distant day when all the small tragedies of the war were covered by the dust of history. He couldn't quite keep up the front as the cortege approached, complete with the buglers of Private Hays's own regiment. Buglers, the firing party, the pine box of a traitor's coffin, and finally Absalom Hays himself with his fair hair falling in untidy locks around his face. It was a grotesque review he was presiding over, Ephraim thought.

"_Fy-_er-ing squad," he repeated to himself, imitating Lowell's Wolverine accent. "At least it's not a hanging..."

He didn't dare say more. The mask might crack. He might pull out his sword, disarm the executioners, and then set Private Hays atop on his own horse and tell him to make for the Kentucky border and never come back. There was an interminable wait while Private Hays talked to the clergyman assigned to oversee his demise; Ephraim looked directly ahead, unwilling to see the tears running down the deserter's pallid face. He seemed to hear a familiar shout off to the side, though, and the sound of galloping hooves finally caught Ephraim's attention. A small, compact figure with flaming red hair was racing toward him with one hand raised.

"General Kingston! A message for you, sir!"

"Thank you, Roy." Ephraim wondered, not for the first time, what would become of the youngster once he was of an age to fight. Roy MacPherson wasn't yet seventeen, but if the war dragged on another couple of years, he'd be old enough to be handed a rifle and send other poor boys to eternity.

Ephraim's mood was so black that morning that it honestly didn't occur to him that the message Roy delivered was the very one he was waiting for. It took reading the paper several times over before its import sank into his brain.

"Commutation of the sentence of death upon Private Absalom Hays," he mouthed to himself, not speaking aloud. "Signed by William S. Rosecrans, General Commanding."

"Is it good news, sir?" Roy's eyes were blue pools of anxiety.

"Most gratifying news." His heart was singing, but Ephraim's face still felt like a plaster mask. "We are thankful to the Lord on this day of mercy."

The life of one poor young soldier wasn't much when measured against the oceans of blood that had already been spilled, the cemeteries already filled with the dead. Still, Ephraim hoped this singular act of compassion might, somehow, in the sight of Heaven act as a balance against the day when he and Lyon Granville had their reckoning.

**The End... for now.**

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_Author's Notes:_

"Philadelphia lawyer" was the common term for an exceptionally competent lawyer, or by extension an especially brilliant person. All the more appropriate given Innes (though NOT a lawyer) is from that city.

"Foley" means "plunderer," making it an appropriate name for the little pickpocket Colm. Walter "Tal" Murphy, notorious rebel cavalryman, is this universe's equivalent of Valter from FE8. Trevor X/shining_valor created the pseudonym, and I'm just borrowing Tal.

The Absalom Hays case is inspired by the real-life saga of Asa Lewis, a young Kentuckian who deserted from the _Confederate_ Army under heart-rending circumstances and did get executed for it over the objections of his brigade and division commanders. Desertion was rampant in both armies during the war, and many got away with it successfully... but those who didn't often did become "examples" to the rest of the men. For the record, I don't think anyone is 100% in the right here on the issue of whether or not to execute Hays. War does not lead to easy decisions.

In our next installment, "For Sorrow or Inspiration," we'll see some actual fighting and Innes will break the Tenth Commandment.


	3. For Sorrow or Inspiration A

**For Sorrow Or Inspiration**

[Part III of "Until the Sun Cries Morning"]

I do not own _Fire Emblem_ or any of its characters.

Rated T for language, violence, consumption of alcohol, and character death. And some other "adult" themes.

* * *

**Section A**

_(fuel for the fire, cannon fodder)_

_May, 1863. "Fort Rosecrans," Murfreesboro, Tennessee._

Ladies' man.

It was the term his rivals used to denigrate Innes when they couldn't think of anything more intelligent to say. He ignored the foolish chatter at his back, but Innes couldn't deny that he did find something to admire in the military wives who braved the hazards of rail travel, highwaymen, and camp food just to spend a few fleeting days with their husbands. These ladies were few and far between, of course- one of the oddities of General Grant of the Army of the Tennessee was that his wife Julia was with him more often than not. In the Army of the Cumberland, you didn't see a lot of it, even among the general officers, but there was _one_ wife who hitched up her crinolines and ventured into the Tennessee muck to see her beloved.

"That's a _woman_, Innes."

"I know it," he replied, more sharply than he would have liked. But, _really_,did Kingston have to be so obvious?

"She's so... assertive."

"Not one of your swooning plantation belles."

Unfair, given Ephraim's own sister could ride as well as most men in the Army. And Kingston spoke the truth, obvious or not- Caeda Lowell was, indeed, a _woman_. She bore a striking though superficial resemblance to Innes's own sister; she was petite and small-boned, with slim arms and delicate fingers. Her head reached only to her husband's shoulder, and any man might have spanned her waist with his hands had he dared to do so. Her coloring was unusual- fair skin, deep blue eyes, and abundant dark hair. Hibernian blood, Innes thought. But there the resemblance to Tana ended.

Mrs. Lowell had presence to fill a room, no matter that room's size. Heads turned when she talked; her voice was sweet and musical, and every word seemed chosen to set her audience at ease. Men who might have resented her presence in camp were taken in by her sweetness and decided she was an asset to morale. Women who might have been jealous of her beauty, or of her marriage, were charmed into being her friends and decided she was a positive model. Even animals yielded to her; Innes had seen her calm down rowdy dogs and even soothe an panicked horse.

In short, she was the very Flower of the West, the pinnacle of womanly virtue... all the more so for being unattainable.

Innes knew of Caeda Lowell back when she was Miss Caeda Morris, daughter of one of his father's colleagues on the state Supreme Court- a rambunctious girl, known for being an abolitionist, which was acceptable, and a suffragist, which wasn't. He remembered the surprise in Philadelphia's legal circles when Justice Morris let his only daughter marry a Michigander, a product of the unruly Free Soil movement. Innes had considered it a simple enough deal, a trade of Justice Morris's political connections for the wealth that the Lowell family mined from the wilds of the Upper Peninsula. The Lowells might be codfish aristocracy, three generations removed from Jonathan Nobody, but Miss Caeda would be maintained in comfort and style... or whatever passed for style out West.

So Caeda Morris Lowell sailed off to Detroit, and Innes had mostly forgotten about her... until she turned up at Fort Rosecrans, and Innes realized that Mrs. Lowell actually loved her husband.

And that Marth Lowell needed his wife the way he needed air to breathe.

-x-

Their plan to win the favor of General Rosecrans wasn't going too well, Ephraim reflected. Innes blamed Ephraim for the failure.

"You exhausted your credits with Rosecrans in the matter of that deserter you convinced him to spare," said Innes, nostrils flaring the way they did when he was in a pet about something. "How many favors do you think the commander of this Army can pull out of his hat just to keep a few brigade leaders happy?"

Ephraim didn't find that too convincing, but when Innes had an idea lodged in his head no amount of persuading could dislodge it, so Ephraim held his tongue and accepted the blame on behalf of himself and General Lowell. So the days dragged on at Fort Rosecrans, each one passing the same as the next- wake up, sort the sheep from the goats, drill, have dinner, drill, have supper and call it a night. It was maddening.

Correspondence with his sister proved his main way of marking the days.

"Seth tells me that the months of idleness have made you impatient; please do not be so eager for the fight," Eirika wrote in a letter he received toward the end of May. "If General Hooker can rally his men to defeat Robert Lee and take Richmond, and this terrible war should end before you see another battle, my heart will be glad for it."

Ephraim felt a little sour over that letter- not toward Eirika, of course, but toward Seth Harding. Seth wasn't cooped up inside Fort Rosecrans like a broody hen; General Harding and his men were let out of the pen on raids against the rebel cavalry. Ephraim had come around to the view that the raids weren't accomplishing much beyond spilling blood, but at least the cavalry was seeing action. But Seth wasn't to blame for the orders he was given, and Ephraim decided not to let his unhappiness with this "idleness" spoil their friendship.

May turned to June, and Ephraim was overseeing the afternoon drill when General Lowell came by, accompanied by a few of his men... and his wife. Ephraim made sure his Kentuckians put on a good show for the visitors. Morale was finally on the upswing after the battering they'd taken at Stones River; the men were well fed and rested and ready to march- as soon as they were given the order.

"Quite a show," Lowell remarked afterward. "I hear often that the rebel troops have more _élan_ and dash than our Federals, but I think your brigade puts the lie to it."

"Thanks." It wouldn't kill Ephraim to accept the compliment, especially when it was just the truth.

"Caeda, would you mind if I had a moment with General Kingston?"

"Not at all," she said. Her eyes sparkled from under the brim of her hat.

Ephraim was ready to compliment Lowell on his marriage, but he forgot the stock phrases when Lowell handed him an envelope. Ephraim recognized it as something that had come from the pen of their Army's commander.

"Henceforth, Brig. General Ephraim F. Kingston and the brigade under his direct command is to be attached to the XIV Corps, under the command of Maj. Gen'l Geo. H. Thomas..."

Ephraim blinked several times over the document.

"What's this? Did I do something wrong?" He shot a glance at Lowell, wondering if the orders in his hand had been _given_... or stolen. "Somebody repeated back to General Crittenden that I wanted him shot, didn't they?"

"It's not his doing. I got you away from Crittenden... and myself away from McCook." Despite the magnitude of this change in their command structure, there wasn't any satisfaction evident in Lowell's face. "When this Army finally gets... 'gets a move-on,' we'll be riding with General Thomas."

"Always did like Old Slow Trot," Ephraim said as the idea of this transfer settled in, giving him a warm feeling. "He has courage."

"Yes, I suppose a man who picks his country over the love and regard of all his family would have exactly that."

Ephraim just nodded; he couldn't fathom the pain that Thomas, a son of the South, must carry with him. More than once Ephraim had tried to imagine what would have been if the Kingston family had been split down the middle like other great families of Kentucky- like the Crittendens and the Breckinridges. His mind couldn't hold the idea, though, couldn't contain the thought that he and his father might have faced across enemy lines, that he and Eirika would be torn apart in bitterness and rancor. So Ephraim beheld a man like Slow Trot Thomas with something that went beyond respect- it was awe, maybe, with all the terrible connotations of the word.

"Did Rosecrans say anything about when we'll be getting out of here?" He said it mostly to change the subject.

"Ephraim, do you read the newspapers?"

"Not much," he admitted without shame. He'd seen the article that called him "the handsomest man in the Army" and had sent it to Eirika hoping she'd be amused by it. He'd also read whatever he could get his hands on after a battle, hunting for the obituaries of friends and old classmates. Too often, he found them.

"Half the papers in this country, half of Congress, and the War Secretary are shouting at Rosecrans to get on the march. Adding our own voices to the din won't help any."

"I see." Ephraim stuffed the letter back in the envelope, then shoved the combination into his jacket. He still wasn't certain if he had leeway to show it to anyone. "Why'd you do this for me?"

"Ephraim, you're a good fighter...a good commander. Why wouldn't I feel privileged to fight alongside you?"

When Lowell put it that way- as simple as the argument a child would make- it rattled Ephraim. Pleased him, yes, but rattled him.

"I don't get him," Ephraim said once Lowell had collected his wife and entourage and so departed. "Nobody does anything for someone without expecting _something_ in return. Least of all a politician."

Even military men didn't do that- impulsive acts of kindness or bravery, sure, but a calculated act to make someone else happy? Rare as hen's teeth. West Point had taught him that. Innes had taught him that.

-x-

Innes never doubted that their victory was inevitable. Ephraim Kingston, his perspective walled in by the precarious safety of his border-state home, couldn't see it that way. He thought of the United States of America and saw it as a collection of farms- little farms, and middling farms, and grand farms overseen by gentleman farmers. And of course there were stores to buy nice things- imported things, mostly. English cloth and china, French luxuries, and so on.

Innes Canmore looked at the United States of America and saw it for what it was and would be- a world of steam and steel. Innes saw it in the ships passing through the Erie Canal to the sea, saw it in the fires of the Bethlehem forge. It was a world where things were made. A world that was making itself, more quickly than a slow-paced Southern mind could ever grasp it. A world whose might, whose strength, whose twenty million souls were capable- more than capable- of breaking down the dream-world of King Cotton.

This vision wasn't given to Innes alone; he found kindred minds in the coterie of men surrounding General Rosecrans. Even Marth Lowell, most certainly _not_ part of that circle, grasped it. Lowell came from that new world; his brigade wasn't just made of farmer's sons with names like Smith and Brown and Williams, but contained a melange of Finns, of Germans, of Cornish, and Canadians. Men from the wilds of Lac Labelle and Ontonagon who reaped the riches of the earth in the form of gold and copper.

The genteel land of Dixie was nothing compared to the strength in these men. And so Innes looked beyond the simple query of whether or not they would subdue the rebellion and set his mind to the question of what they would do after. They would need leaders to rebuild the states they'd brought to heel. And so Innes decided to do a little genteel farming of his own by cultivating some likely men, men close enough in age that they'd look to him for counsel. (Innes never regretted that his hair had turned silver before he was twenty; it only lent him a greater air of authority.)

He targeted a few of his fellow officers and succeeded, more or less, in collecting two of them- one gallant scion of Kentucky's aristocracy, one well-connected representative of the emerging power of the Upper West. He could make something out of them- Senators, occupation governors, _something... _if Innes could keep them from getting themselves killed. Ephraim Kingston was a known problem, still the glory-hound he'd been back at West Point, angry over missing out on the Mexican War and hoping for some new war to come along and grant him laurels. Marth Lowell turned out to be one unknown problem after another; Innes was surprised and pleased that Lowell had an innate flair for military tactics but was _dis_pleased and generally disgusted that Lowell spent his nights with the bottle whenever the missus was away. So Innes welcomed the distracting presence of Caeda Lowell in the camp. The longer she stayed, the more Lowell looked like the leader Innes needed him to be.

Then again, even a drunken fool could get placed into the Presidency if he were handsome enough- the war hadn't erased memories of Franklin Pierce entirely from the nation's memory. Not that Innes wanted a puppet as ineffective as Pierce...

Not that, deep down, Innes didn't want the Presidency for himself. His father had been the one to talk him down from that branch of his ambitions, and his father was dubbed the Sage of the Bench for good reason. One could do more good from the back of the stage, his father would say. Better by far to be Horatio rather than Hamlet.

But Innes couldn't help but imagine that, if he surrounded himself with the right sort of men, his era would be as brilliant as the age of Jackson, if not the age of Washington. And if he had the right sort of woman at his side- a brilliant Portia, not a fragile Ophelia- nothing in the world was beyond his reach.

**To Be Continued...**

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**This chapter ("For Sorrow or Inspiration") will come out in several chunks to make it more digestible.

The significance of transferring Ephraim and Marth to General Thomas's Corps is that this will place them right in the middle of the action at Chickamauga, which is covered in this chapter. This, clearly, would have something of a downside to it.

I don't have to explain the Shakespeare references, do I?


End file.
